i must say that john also won the pulitzer prize. yes. c-span: what is it about your book, do you think, got the pulitzer prize judges to give you the award? >> guest: that's a hard question. i think that the award may be seen as acknowledgment, recognition of the fact that the effort needed to be made--i had made it--to find out the truth about the showa emperor and the role he played in the war, and that the confrontation with the past history and memory is very important for japan at this juncture, when the japanese governments, including the new koizumi junichiro government, insists on approving f--for use in the high schools and junior high schools textbooks that whitewash very key aspects of the asia pacific war. i think that at a time when japan's leaders continue to maintain for home consumption the view of the lost war as sort of a holy war on the one hand, and a war of self-defense, a righteous war, for self-defense and self-preservation, but for external consumption, they, you know, pay lip service to the fact that it was a war